


Forests Burn // Cities Rot

by BooSkiddoo



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Case Fic, Flashbacks, Gen, slight AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-25
Updated: 2012-10-25
Packaged: 2017-11-17 00:35:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/545565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BooSkiddoo/pseuds/BooSkiddoo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Slight AU for season two, set after Reese has recovered Finch. </p>
<p>Harold and Nathan after a loss, Finch and Reese recovering from an attack. Or: Finch had always wanted his legacy to be that which he would build, but he is more than capable of tearing the world apart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forests Burn // Cities Rot

**Author's Note:**

> I had wanted to get this up before the premier of season two, but because I was busy and so was my beta (go say hey to quinfish, doer of amazing deeds) that didn't happen. 
> 
> When I started writing I didn't know about Bear and I had glossed over the fact that Nathan divorced his wife rather than, well, what happens in the fic. 
> 
> This story first came together when I realized that Finch would be well within the mourning period for Nathan's death (most people grieve for an average of five years) when Root took him. Double trauma==double breakdowns==perfect fic fodder.

**  
**  
The day dawned clear and cool. Birds chirped and flitted outside the window.  
  
Harold cradled a mug in his hands, but the coffee inside had long since gone cold. He took a sip anyway and grimaced. Nathan always made his coffee too sweet, not that he ever really complained about it.  
  
Not that he would ever complain about it again.  
  
Harold set the mug as quietly as he could onto a side table, glancing at the lanky figure huddled under a too-thin blanket on the couch. That at least he could improve, Harold thought as he attempted to rub some of the cold exhaustion out of his legs.  
  
Harold may not have lived in the Ingram’s home, but you'd never know it if you were a casual visitor; Harold moved through the house as if it were his own. He made a brief pit stop in the kitchen to pour the rest of his tepid drink down the drain. The water hissed as he rinsed his mug absently, contemplating his next move.  
  
In the end, he decided it would be best just to grab a blanket from the linen closet at the end of the hallway leading away from the house's front door. The little cupboard smelled like all such spaces tended to, after a while--like the promise of a warm and perfect sleep. It reminded Harold of his own childhood home, a little. He pulled a thick, soft comforter from the middle of the stack that spent most of its time in the guest bedroom.   
  
He paused at the base of the stairs on his way back, listening silently with an arm full of unwieldy blanket, but all was quiet. Which, all things considered, wasn't that surprising; Will had always been an emotive, caring child. The news had hit him hard.  
  
It had hit him hard, too, really, but Harold didn't know what to do about it yet, except to make sure there was plenty of aspirin at hand, a ready supply of coffee, and, of course, he could make sure everyone was warm enough. Addressing physical needs instead of emotional ones might be superficial at best, but it was something he could do. Something he could do that he knew would be accepted.  
  
When he got back to the family room, it was to find Nathan sitting up, back bowed, the light afghan he had been huddled under wrapped loosely around him like an old woman's shawl. His eyes were locked on the flickering of the television screen, but Harold couldn't tell if he was really seeing anything. The sound was turned down low; Harold couldn't make out any words.  
  
That was fine. Harold didn't really want to hear. Didn't really want to see.  
  
Harold threw the blanket on top of Nathan by way of greeting. It's a strange, false inversion of their college years, when Nathan would throw a pillow at Harold's face to wake him so that they could go on some grand adventure. More often than not they'd just end up wandering the quiet city streets, sharing youthful philosophies and the best hooch they could afford. So when Nathan turned his blank, hooded eyes to him, Harold tried to smile, he really did, but it felt more like a spasm, the rest of his face locked in strict, solemn rigor.  
  
Nathan turned back to the TV.  
  
And that was it. That was as far as Harold had planned, and suddenly he's stuck, hesitation incarnate in stocking feet. He thought about sitting back down, but where? Right next to Nathan? Or did he need his space? Would he seem too withdrawn if he returned to the chair in which he had spent the night? Maybe he could clean something. But there was nothing left to clean. He was about to wander back into the kitchen to make another pot of coffee (the last one was still mostly full, but he knew that neither of them were in the mood to eat anything) when Nathan spoke, jerking his head to indicate the cacophonous twittering from outside.   
  
“Finches were always her favorite.”  
  
Harold Wren sat next to his oldest friend and took his hand so that he would know there was at least one person left in the world. Together they sat and watched the towers crumble again. And again. And again.  
  
Their ears were full of the songs of finches.  
  
–  
  
The service had been well attended, Nathan said, his eyes red but dry. Will said nothing as he moved silently through the house clutching a single white lily. It would begin to wilt soon, but Harold doubted that Will cared much.  
  
That night, after Will had been tucked securely into bed (something that hadn't happened for many, many years), Nathan and Harold had their own, private memorial service.  
  
Separately, they had both planned to drink (and each had set aside a bottle of exceptionally average pinot noir just for the occasion—her favorite) but neither of them could bear to dull the pain, so the bottles sat untouched on the nightstand as Harold and Nathan lay tangled together. Harold curled around Nathan, stroking his back with one hand and running his other through Nathan's hair in a poor imitation of the way she used to. Nathan muffled his mewling whimpers in the curve of Harold's shoulder, shaking them both with his wrenching, full body sobs.  
  
–  
  
The next day saw them both back at work. IFT needed a guiding hand, and no one could ever replace Nathan. Harold's insurance firm was less dependent upon his being there, but there were some things he'd been wanting to take care of.  
  
When Harold got home, Nathan was already there, in the middle of cooking dinner as Will sat at the kitchen table, engrossed in his math homework. Nathan looked troubled. But that was right, wasn't it? He was troubled, they all were.  
  
Except that it wasn’t just troubled, that look on his face: someone had given him a problem to chew on.   
  
Harold knew that he could ask Nathan about it immediately, but he also knew that Nathan was the sort of person who preferred to consider things carefully before sharing his thoughts. So instead he turned to Will.  
  
“How was your first day back?”  
  
“Alright, I guess,” he says quietly and shrugs, “there weren't a lot of other kids there, though.”  
  
“No, I suppose there wouldn't be.” Harold sat down at the table and glanced at what Will was writing.  
  
Will glared up at him and covered his work with both hands. Harold sat back in his chair, pretending disinterest. It was an old game between them and would eventually dissolve into both of them doodling stick figures with mustaches, each trying to outdo the other. (Out of a sense of deference to Nathan, they did talk about Will's homework also, and no matter how Will may have felt about them, Harold cherished those moments too.)  
  
Dinner was some strange, pseudo-Korean concoction that Nathan had found a recipe for online. None of them had ever had anything quite like it before, and it paired perfectly with the bottle of pinot noir that he and Nathan shared, sipping slowly.  
  
Conversation that evening was a slow, hesitant thing, Harold and Nathan both contemplating other things as they sat together long after Will had wandered off to bed. They took their time finishing the bottle.  
  
And then, abruptly, Nathan brought his full attention back to the real world, fixing Harold in place with the force of his stare.  
  
“IFT was approached by the NSA today,” he said. “They have a project for us.”  
  
–  
  
They discussed it nearly all night, going round and round in circles, neither of them knowing who was playing devil’s advocate anymore. In the end, the decision lay with Nathan, and Harold would support that decision no matter what.  
  
–  
  
Nathan turned down the contract.  
  
Nathan turned down the contract and Harold didn't know what to think anymore. He had been sure, he had been so sure that Nathan would accept.  
  
How could he turn it down, knowing how many lives it could save? How many families. And it wouldn't even have been all that difficult! Especially not with government support. It was really just a matter of using the right algorithms to parse the data to get to the actionable information.  
  
It was exactly the same sort of software he's been writing since day one at his insurance firm, just on a different level. And there had been so many breakthroughs when it came to studying the statistics of large populations, so much information, so many opportunities...  
  
Harold had dreamed in code since his junior year, but it had always been a nebulous sort of nothing-script. Pseudocode. From that moment on on, even his subconscious was focused.  
  
But Nathan had made his decision, and it was Nathan that the government approached, not Harold. Besides, it would be a very bad idea to invite that sort of attention, he reminded himself.  
  
–  
  
Harold built it anyway. Or, well, part of it. Alpha version, proof of concept, using only publicly available data fields and a search radius no larger than their neighborhood. His fledgeling machine.  
  
It wasn't perfect, it was so far from perfect. It barely even worked, but Harold had faith that when Nathan saw it, he'd understand that it had to be done.  
  
–  
  
“What the hell do you think you're doing, Harold?”  
  
That was...not the reaction he had been expecting, to be perfectly honest.  
  
“I don't understand.” Harold watched warily has Nathan paced back and forth, running his hands roughly through his hair. “This can save lives.”  
  
“At what cost, though?” Nathan gestured wildly at Harold's meager workstation, hooked up to its three, quietly humming servers. “This is an unprecedented invasion of privacy. I thought you, of all people, would understand that.”  
  
Harold remained silent but firm, standing beside his machine. He knew he'd be able to explain all of this to Nathan, but not while he was incensed.  
  
Eventually, Nathan slumped down in Harold's desk chair, rubbing at his still too tired eyes. When he finally spoke, his voice was small.  
  
“Hacking into a terrorist cell's servers is one thing, but this? These are our neighbors, our friends.”  
  
“Yes, they are. And, with any luck, their names will never come up.” Harold hesitated, unsure of exactly how much to say, but he knew Nathan's mind: any omission would bother him to distraction. Best to have it all out.  
  
“Statistically, most terrorist threats come from within the attacked nation, from one of its own citizens. Even in instances where the attackers are not citizens, as was the case with the attacks three months ago, the terrorists are often trained within the country's borders. But! Even when they are careful, there are still detectable patterns.” Finch leaned over his desk and, with two mouse clicks, maximized a screen with his first set of algorithms. He stepped back so that Nathan could get a clear look at them.  
  
“Most of this information is freely available, of course. Self-volunteered, even.”  
  
“Privacy settings don't go very far, do they?” Nathan's mind was half busy parsing the new information, half focused on their conversation. Harold allowed himself a small smile. “But what about the rest of it?”  
  
“The rest of it, well, it would be much simpler if I had official access.”  
  
“So you have unofficial access, then.” Nathan cast a suspicious glance over his shoulder. “You didn't hack into the Pentagon again, did you?”  
  
“No! Besides, I'm much more interested in the NSA; their records are both more extensive and more pervasive.”  
  
“Well, you always have been a sucker for surveillance.” Nathan turned back to Harold's elegant little equations.  
  
“Yes, that's precisely the point.” Excitedly, Harold crouched down at the desk, hands pressed palm to palm, pinkies tapping a staccato onto Nathan's knee. “The machine adds nothing new to the existing system; it merely collects the available data, processes it, and outputs useable information.”  
  
Nathan leaned back in the chair, watching and considering. Harold knew he looked too excited by half, too hopeful, but he'd been sitting on this for weeks.  
  
“You'll have to code it on your own,” Nathan said slowly. “I can barely keep up with what you're doing now, and this is just the start of it. So what, exactly, do you want me to do?”  
  
Harold popped up out of his crouch and perched on the edge of his desk.  
  
“Two things,” he held up two fingers for emphasis. “First, contact the people who brought you this project in the first place, tell them that you've reconsidered your position and that you've decided to give it a shot.”  
  
“Alright, and the second?”  
  
“Second, I need you to act as my intermediary. No one can know that I'm involved with this in any capacity. All the glory, if there ever is any, will go to you. My name is never to be mentioned, the presence of anyone other than yourself on our end is never to be hinted at. Is this acceptable?”  
  
Nathan looked at him askance, but there was a shine to his eyes that usually heralded adventure. This was more momentous than anything they'd done together before, and they both knew it, but it was pleasant to forget, just a little bit.  
  
“Alright, but I've got a few conditions of my own.”  
  
“Anything.”  
  
“Then you have yourself a deal, Mister Wren.”  
  
–  
–  
  
“Anything yet, Mister Reese?”  
  
“Nothing so far.” Reese speaks calmly, barely paying attention to Finch's sharp tone as he gazes through his rifle's scope. A camera would be less conspicuous, he thinks, but heavier and not as easily concealed in case a hasty retreat was in order; he lets the internal debate roll slowly in the back of his mind while he waits and watches.  
  
“I don't understand what could possibly be taking them so long.” Faintly, Reese can hear the sound of Finch's uneven tread as he paces; there hasn't been much for Finch to do on this job.  
  
“You should know better than anyone, Finch.” Reese readjusts himself to make sure his muscles don't get too cool. “These things tend to be more complicated than they seem.”  
  
“I have no idea to what you could be referring, Mister Reese. Keep me informed.” Finch terminates the connection sharply. Reese starts recalculating the efficiency of entrance and escape routes.  
  
–  
  
Finch had been right. Finch usually is, and he knows it, but Reese would never admit it to him.  
  
Reese suspects that Finch knows that, too.  
  
Either way, this is taking far too long to be just another blackmailing.  
  
“We got anything on either of these guys, Finch?”  
  
“Nothing of much interest, I'm afraid.” Finch's voice has taken on the rhythmic cadence that he falls into whenever he's trying to solve a puzzle. Good, Reese doesn't have to worry about him getting distracted by every twitchy shadow this way.  
  
“Friends since high school, Andrew Weiss moved out of state to study linguistics on a water polo scholarship, while his friend, Michael Simon, stayed in the city, moving from job to job, though not at a rate that would suggest anything suspicious. He's currently working as a sous-chef at a fairly well regarded Italian restaurant. Andrew moved back to the city eight months ago and is working a couple of jobs; he's on staff at two different community colleges as an adjunct professor, and he referees for several youth sports leagues. Neither of them have any prior arrests or convictions.”  
  
“Weiss’s working at two different schools? Are you sure they're both really Weiss?”  
  
“Absolutely; both institutions list all their faculty members online, including photographs.”  
  
“Huh. Can't imagine that would be easy.”  
  
“No, I imagine it wouldn't be, but adjuncts are often paid below a living wage by their reckoning; he would have had to take the second job just to stay afloat.”  
  
“So this could be about money.”  
  
“Potentially.” Finch hesitates. Reese waits, and watches. “Although I suspect not. By all accounts, both men are living comfortably. They both seem ambitious, but only within the scope of their chosen fields. Blackmail? Murder? That takes a different kind of ambition.”  
  
–  
  
Reese had always been good at stakeouts. The waiting, the stillness, it didn't bother him. It had bothered other people; Stanton, especially, came to mind. There was no better active operative than Cara Stanton, but the second they knew they had to play a waiting game, she would get antsy. It never got them caught, but it had been a close thing, once or twice.  
  
Reese had thought that Finch didn't mind the waiting either, at first. Finch had struck him as exceptionally patient when they first met, the sort of person who could be infinitely still and watchful. It turns out that this isn't at all the case, and it had been getting worse lately.  
  
No surprise there, really, after Turing, or Root, or whatever she wanted to call herself. She could have called herself Thomas Jefferson for all that Reese cared.  
  
But Finch's agitation, that bothered him. And so he got into the habit of chatting. Nothing important, most of the time, nothing that couldn't easily be interrupted. Innocuous little stories. And in return, Finch would give him a laugh, or a calm silence, or, sometimes, a small, untraceable story of his own.  
  
Mostly, Finch would only talk about the things he knew Reese already knew about—meeting Grace, living with her, meeting her family. Or, sometimes, it'd be about the Ingrams, what Will had been like as a child, starting business after business with Nathan, how he and Nathan's wife never seemed to get along until, suddenly, they had. Once or twice, he mentioned having brothers, but in a sort of disinterested voice that made Reese wonder whether he was lying.  
  
Either way, it helped pass the time.  
  
–  
  
Reese has been following Weiss and Simon since early in the morning, watching (but not listening, he had been unable to get close enough to actually eavesdrop until well into the afternoon) as they had inexpertly initiated blackmail and then gone back to Simon's apartment where both of them had proceeded to do absolutely nothing. They both look tense, but near as Reese can see, it isn't the sort of tension that, when snapped, would cause either man to murder the other.  
  
Finally, just after sunset, they get a visitor. She's Caucasian, on the short side at just two or three inches under average height, with dark hair that falls in waves down to her shoulders. Her face is pretty but otherwise unremarkable. Nothing about her attire hints at either exceptional wealth or exceptional poverty. She does, however, look frightened.  
  
Reese snaps a few shots and sends them along to Finch, then he switches his earpieces’ feed to the microphone on Weiss' cell.  
  
“Hey, Angie,” Weiss wraps their visitor in an immense hug. “I thought we agreed to not meet until this was all over.”  
  
“I know.” They break the hug, Angie wiping at her eyes. “But I just couldn't stand it, not knowing what was going on.”  
  
“Hey, c'mon, it'll all be OK.” He rocks on his toes, temporarily uncertain. “Why don't you grab a chair? Mickey was just making dinner, but it's only spaghetti. I'll take over, and you guys can talk.”  
  
Angela nods and sits while Weiss disappears into the kitchen. Less than a minute later, Simon appears in the living room bearing two opened beers. He hands one off to Angela as he sits. She takes it one handed, the other preoccupied with trying to clean some of the mess that her mascara has made of her face.  
  
Even from the next building over, Reese can see that it's a losing battle.  
  
He skips back over onto the open line with Finch.  
  
“I'm seeing a strong family resemblance here, Finch. You get anything yet?”  
  
“Yes. Our visitor is named Angela Thorne, nee Simon. She and our number are cousins. They appear to be quite close. It also appears that she and Weiss dated in high school, but it ended amicably and the relationship shows no signs of beginning again. Her husband's name is Jacob Thorne, the man that our two suspects are attempting to blackmail.”  
  
“So these two are operating at her behest?”  
  
“It would seem so, though I've no idea—ah.” Reese waits a beat or two for Finch to continue. Sometimes, when presented with new information, it's like he forgets he had been in the middle of a conversation. When they aren't working a case, it's endearing. When they are, well, slightly less so.  
  
“Finch?”  
  
“Judging by her bank records, Angela and her husband seem to have been separated for...nearly six months. She's filed for divorce. It looks as if Jacob Thorne has been...non-compliant. Do we know anything more about the terms our blackmailers have set?”  
  
“No.” It burns Reese a little that he hadn't been able to get close enough to Weiss to bluejack his phone until after the meeting. “Although if I had to guess, I'd say that she's their source of information.”  
  
“I agree. I've pulled up all the files pertaining to her marriage and impending divorce; it may take me some time to go through them. In the morning, I'll visit Angela in person.”  
  
The idea of Finch being in the field makes Reese nervous. Irrationally nervous. He pushes it down; Finch would understand if he lodged a complaint, but he wouldn't appreciated it.  
  
“Alright. I don't think I'm going to get much more from these three. I'll see what I can get from Thorne.”  
  
–  
  
Jacob Thorne, as far as Reese can tell, is an extraordinarily ordinary sort of person; he is agitated (no surprise there), never stilling for more than a few seconds at a time. He probably hasn't slept much since the previous morning. Not much of a physical threat, really, any more than the average able-bodied man who walked plenty but never got to the gym. He did, however, have a gun and had started carrying it around with him.  
  
Reese taps off a quick message to Finch to that effect, knowing that he's busy with Angela. From the way that Thorne is moving, Reese figures it won't be long until he breaks his current pattern, likely explosively.  
  
Five minutes later, and Thorne is on the move. Consequently, so is Reese, seven steps behind.  
  
Reese knows from long experience that it rarely pays to try to predict the movements of an agitated target, but as they move from neighborhood to neighborhood, he starts to think that maybe he can hazard a guess. Extraordinarily ordinary, like he said.  
  
Reese follows Thorne for seven more blocks before Thorne steps onto the narrow staircase leading up to a quaint little rowhouse just as Finch exits the very same house. Thorne and Finch (he was Burdette today, Finch had told him that morning) stand in frozen shock, staring at each other. Even from half a block away, Reese can see the genuine fright in Finch's eyes, fully aware that  the briefcase full of paperwork he is clutching loosely to his chest is his only defense against Thorne's gun.  
  
It’s the only contingency that Reese didn’t plan for.  
  
Thorne starts to reach for his gun. Reese’s own weapon is heavy in his hand. Finch's clothes are splattered with bright red splotches. Thorne howls, the sound mixing with the rapport of gunfire.  
  
Reese reaches them mere seconds after Thorne hits the ground, howling and clutching at his knee. Finch is looking at him strangely, but he gathers his wits; they move past each other without exchanging a word. Finch will head back to the library, Reese will make sure that Angela has called the police and wait with her long enough to make sure that she is going to hold together. After that, he, too, will return to the library.  
  
–  
  
“Why did the Machine give us Simon's number and not Thorne's?” Reese asks. “Or Angela's, for that matter.”  
  
“I'm not entirely certain.” Finch spares Reese half a glance before turning back to his screens. “In fact, I've been trying to figure it out for the last half hour. As you know, the Machine doesn't bother with simple blackmail, and both Simon and Weiss were decidedly nonviolent. The only thing I can think of is that Thorne intended to use Angela to hunt down his blackmailers, kill them, and leave her unharmed.”  
  
“She probably wouldn't have made it out either, in the end.”  
  
Finch stops typing and turns to face Reese more fully; there are still speckles of blood on his cheek, at the edge of his glasses. “What makes you say that?”  
  
“Simon and Weiss were the immediate threats, but Angela represented a security breach.”  
  
“A security breach?” Finch arches an eyebrow at him. “You really think that he would have thought of it that way?”  
  
“No, I think he would have thought of it as betrayal.”  
  
Finch turns toward his desk again, but doesn't resume working. Instead, he looks down at his hands, a little lost, a little forlorn.  
  
“Strange, isn't it?” he says, sounding small, “how often the betrayer feels betrayed.”  
  
–  
–  
  
After the servers had been shipped off to wherever the government considered to be a safe location, Harold and Nathan threw themselves back into their other projects. Harold kept half an ear open to the chaos of the government's more clandestine happenings, but that had always been his way. IFT needed to be regrown in the wake of the Machine; that seemed more important just then. More than that, it seemed to them to be their right as citizens.  
  
They laughed about it, over champagne, being noble protectors of the realm. Serving all and acknowledged by none. It seemed like something out of a fairy tale.  
  
And then Alicia Corwin had stormed into Nathan's office with nary a by-your-leave and plenty of accusations. Veiled, of course.  
  
Someone knows about the machine. Someone's been talking about it. Someone's trying to sell it to the Chinese and you wouldn't know anything about that, would you, Nathan?  
  
Nathan didn't, and Finch didn't.  
  
The next day, they noticed an excessive amount of unauthorized traffic on IFT's internal servers; they let it go because neither of them had anything to hide in this case, though Harold did consider sending the CIA an email (anonymous and untraceable) suggesting that they rename their 'clandestine services' to something a little more accurate. He liked ‘clumsy and obvious,' though, clearly, it would be up to them.  
  
He didn't, of course, but when he shared the thought with Nathan he was rewarded with a deep laugh and one of the most splendid smiles he had seen grace Nathan's careworn face for quite some time.  
  
–  
–  
  
When Reese strides into the library the next morning, it's to find Finch still at his desk in the same clothes he had been in the night before. This should raise alarm bells, but, well, Finch has been slightly more erratic ever since Root.  
  
Finch tells him that there's no new number yet and Reese allows himself to be dismissed; they had long since agreed that Finch was no longer to attempt to keep information from him 'for his own good.'  
  
There are still splotches of blood on Finch's cheek, brown and faded so that they might have been freckles.  
  
–  
–  
  
Harold never told Nathan about Grace. He felt guilty about it, especially because he told Grace about Nathan. Nothing specific; he called him 'my friend from college,' or 'a coworker,' or something else as equally innocuous. He might have been twenty people for all that Grace knew.  
  
But afterward, he was glad. If Nathan had know about Grace, he would have insisted that they meet, and that would have put her in danger, too. More danger. It was selfish, he knew, but Harold didn't know if he could stand losing both of them.  
  
Although, when it came right down to it, he supposed that if the government knew enough to ever go after Grace, he wouldn't have to stand it for very long.  
  
–  
–  
  
Someone is murdered every eighteen hours in New York city alone. Finch had told him that, the first time they had met. Reese hasn't heard from Finch for thirty six hours.  
  
When he makes it to their little fortress, he finds it in disarray. Well, slightly more disarray than usual—there is method to the madness of Finch's workstation, the sad glass pane that holds the details for their latest case, and the obsessively kept board of missed opportunities. The man himself is not in evidence, though he is clearly not long gone.  
  
Not long gone, and likely to return soon—Finch has left his workstation completely accessible, one screen dedicated to running the usual analysis, the others completely taken over by some new project. Reese can't resist taking a quick peek.  
  
When compared to Finch, Reese knows that he appears intellectually bumbling at best, but the truth is that he is far from stupid. Besides, Finch is a careful, if frugal, about his documentation.  
  
Once, when faced with security that the man had deemed 'difficult,' Reese had seen Finch somehow slide unnoticed past ferocious firewalls not thirty seconds later. If there was no way to hack something without arousing attention he would invariably come up with a shockingly elegant hardware solution. This...thing that Finch is working on would be fast, yes, but it wouldn't be elegant, or subtle, or even reversible.  
  
“There are no new numbers today, Mister Reese.”  
  
Reese fights the instinct to flinch. Instead, he turns and, for the first time in a long time, really looks at Finch: behind the frames, his eyes are bloodshot, pupils painfully small, transforming the irises from their usual ice blue to something more ghostly; the stain below his eyes is a sickly green and yellow combination, early warning sign of long term sleep deprivation; his cheeks are flushed, though the rest of his face, even his lips, are abnormally pale—likely a sign of his body's failure to regulate its internal temperature rather than from anger or embarrassment. His hair, always defiant of gravity, shows signs of being continuously run through and pulled at. His clothing, though, is immaculate, so even if he hasn't been sleeping or eating adequately, at least he is bathing and changing his clothes. His hands have taken on a slight tremor, visible from across the room.  
  
“No number, Finch, or your number?”  
  
“I don't know what you think you're getting at.” Finch's face twists, furious, as he crosses the room, limping more heavily than usual. “You aren't needed, Mister Reese. Go home.”  
  
Finch heads straight for his computer, either expecting Reese to move or to have already disappeared from the sheer power of his dismissal. Reese does neither and Finch is forced to halt on his bad leg, glaring furiously up at Reese.  
  
“Get out of my way, John.”  
  
“No, not until you tell me what's going on.”  
  
Incensed, Finch attempts to actually shove Reese out of the way. Had things been different, Reese might have been so shocked that he'd have allowed it, or allowed it just to see what Finch would do next.  
  
Instead, he grabs Finch's forearm where it rests across his chest and uses it as leverage to march them away from the computer station. Panic swells up in Finch's eyes as he stumbles, out of control. With his free hand, and without seeming to even realize he's doing it, Finch goes for Reese's eyes using the technique that Reese had taught him. He allows himself a flash of pride even as he catches the flailing attack, forcing that hand down to Finch's side before spinning him around and pulling him sharply back so that they're facing the same way, Finch trapped against Reese's chest.  
  
Finch never shouts or yells, but he does fight furiously, even attempting to kick Reese in the shins with his damaged leg. Reese is half sure that Finch would try to bite him if given the opportunity. Reese just waits. He can feel the spasming tremors of Finch's exhaustion even through his futile struggles.  
  
On any other day, the struggle could have gone on for ages; on any other day, it wouldn't have gone on at all—Finch would have tried to talk his way out, or tried to use his environment against Reese. On any other day he would have covered his tracks.  
  
Finch gives one last desperate, full body twist before going slack. Reese supports him easily, knows better than to let him go, or to speak. In the worn, abandoned library, the only sounds to break the silence are the soft whirr of the waiting computer, Finch's ragged breathing, and, distantly, the persistent drip of a leaky pipe that neither of them have been able to track down.  
  
Slowly, Reese moves them, presses his back against a wall and then slides them down it so that they're both sitting, legs stretched out, on the floor. He knows that Finch's injuries wouldn't have allowed him to remain vertical for much longer, even with Reese taking most of his weight. Reese loosens his hold some, but doesn't let go. Finch plucks desperately at Reese's sleeves with his fingers, a completely useless gesture.  
  
“What does it do?” Reese is careful to keep his tone hushed and gentle. “Specifically, I mean—I got the gist of it.”  
  
“It-ah,” Finch hesitates. “First, it cuts off the government's access to the Machine. That was all it was going to do, for a while. But I couldn't...I couldn't stop thinking about what you said, the other day, after Thorne. How he would have killed Angela out of a sense of betrayal despite...and I couldn't stop thinking about...”  
  
Finch swallows thickly, leaning farther away from Reese's body, as far as the circle of his arms and the stiffness of Finch's own spine will permit.  
  
“I always assumed that the government had some reason, some real reason, for killing Nathan. Or that they thought they did, that they'd misinterpreted...I thought maybe his number had come up, that because the first number we gave them was a traitor, a real threat, that they assumed that every other number that came up would be the same. It was the best possible number to give them—dramatic enough to prove a point, subtle enough that no human would ever have picked up on the pattern. They were going to shut us down if we didn't...But by starting there, I thought maybe we had primed the people to whom we had given the Machine to shoot first and check facts later, if at all. It was...I suggested it, so I thought: my fault. It was easier to take the blame for his death than to accept we had handed the Machine over to monsters.”  
  
“So you built this new machine,” Reese prompts.  
  
“No.” Reese can hear the hard, icy anger underneath Finch's exhaustion. “I built a virus. It would have gone through the Machine, used its access to the NSA feeds to rip through our government's servers, and then, from there, it would have taken to the internet. It would have destroyed everything.”  
  
Reese doesn't quite know what to say to that.  
  
“People would have died.”  
  
“People have already died, Mister Reese.”  
  
They sit in silence for a few moments. Eventually, Finch leans back more fully against Reese, who pretends to not notice the shining tear tracks marking his face.  
  
“It's funny,” Reese says.  
  
“Hm?”  
  
“I never would have taken you for an anarchist.”  
  
Finch huffs out a little laugh, lips twisting in a not-quite-smile. “Nor I. So, really, it's good that you got here in time to stop me.”  
  
Reese tightens his arms briefly, hiding the reassuring squeeze in a readjustment of his position. It's important, he thinks, to allow Finch the option to ignore the gesture. Finch hadn't been allowed much control, recently.  
  
Instead, Finch places a grateful hand on top of Reese's and leans back more fully. They stay like that, silent and warm and mostly comfortable, until Finch falls asleep.  
  
–  
  
Reese stands, indecisive, before Finch's monitors, innocuous despite the virulent code.  
  
He had eventually dragged a still mostly asleep Finch to one of the back rooms. Finch had long ago fitted it up as an acceptably comfortable resting place for himself. Reese had pretended to not know about it (despite coming across it a week into their collaboration) and Finch, in kind, pretended not to know that Reese was pretending not to know. Reese supposes that their arrangement could do with a little less pretense, if either of them were less paranoid.  
  
Reese lets his eyes drift passively over the cascading lines of code. If, while, then, True. Reese had met great men and killers alike, but Finch was the first person he had met who could have, blinded with rage and fear and pain, torn the world apart.  
  
He'd have put it back together again, or tried to, Reese has no doubt, but once he had, he would have had no way to hide anymore. It wouldn't matter how clever or subtle Finch was, he'd never be able to disappear fast enough.  
  
Reese reaches out, deletes the lines of code, the files, the directories, the latest backup of the entire system, then shuts it all down. The screens go dark.   **  
**


End file.
